Today I stumbled across this celebrity-news story:
Ben Kingsley and Mary-Kate Olsen will kiss in an upcoming movie.
Immediately I wanted to yell, "Watson? Make a note of that!" Not, as you might think, because the very idea had sent me barking mad, but because it gives me a chance to talk about one of my favorite comedic movies, Without A Clue.
Without A Clue presents a twist on one of my favorite literary subjects, Sherlock Holmes. In this version, Watson (played by Kingsley) is a straitlaced doctor whose deductive faculties make him a consummate crime-solver. In fear of notoriety, however, he attributes his success to a fictional Sherlock Holmes, and is forced to hire a drunken actor (Michael Caine) to portray him when Holmes's fame spreads. When an apparently routine robbery leads to a plot of national importance, it's Watson versus Moriarty, with "Holmes" as the public face of the thing: hence "Watson? Make a note of that!" among many, many other wonderful lines.
Sure, it's the buddy formula, but a version which toys gleefully with Sherlockian convention as Caine's character swills, flirts, and generally proves to be as dumb as a stump. The casting is quite good, too, with not only Kingsley and Caine but supporting actors Jeffrey Jones, Peter Cook, and Lysette Anthony. One of those rare comedies that remains funny all the way through, Without A Clue, like its Watson, deserved far more fame than it has.
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